Jammu, March 16: While the government has issued advisories for closing down schools, colleges and universities and has banned public gatherings in the wake of the coronavirus scare in Jammu and Kashmir, no such advisory has been issued for the transport department.
The J&K transport department, which has a large fleet of buses, matadors and minibuses, ferry thousands of people daily.
While many departments as well as organisations have ordered the closure of their operations till March 31, the transport department has come out with no such advisory and hundreds of people continue to travel in jampacked public buses every day.
“We have not received any government advisory regarding halting the transport operation or taking any measures in this regard. We cannot take the call on our own until we receive a direction from the government,” said Gurmukh Singh, Joint Transport Commissioner. Meanwhile, people, who have no conveyance of their own, said they were taking precaution while travelling in the public transport.
“The matador and bus drivers do not care to sanitise their vehicles or use disinfectants so that their vehicle could remain virus-free. The passengers are at a risk,” said Satish Kumar, a resident of Kachhi Chawni.
Drivers said they could not halt operations as they had to pay daily rent to the owners. They said if they stopped plying, they would incur heavy losses. They, however, claimed that after completing the journey on a particular route and dropping off all passengers, they washed the vehicle and sprayed sanitiser on the seats and handles.
